Tuesday, September 20, 2011

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL CONDEMNS DECISION TO DENY TROY DAVIS CLEMENCY, CALLING IT AN ‘OUTRAGEOUS AFFRONT TO JUSTICE’

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL CONDEMNS DECISION TO DENY TROY DAVIS CLEMENCY, CALLING IT AN ‘OUTRAGEOUS AFFRONT TO JUSTICE’

Contact: Wende Gozan Brown at 347-526-5520, wgozan@aiusa.org(Atlanta) – Following
the announcement that the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles denied
clemency to death-row inmate Troy Anthony Davis, Larry Cox, executive
director of Amnesty International AIUSA (AIUSA), released the following
statement:"It
is unconscionable that the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles has
denied relief to Troy Davis. Allowing a man to be sent to death under an
enormous cloud of doubt about his guilt is an outrageous affront to
justice.

"In
2007 the Board vowed that no execution would go forward unless there
was ‘no doubt’ about guilt, a vow that has now been rendered
meaningless. To fail to re-examine the facts, including allegations
about an alternate suspect, and allow this execution to go forward is an
injustice to both the Davises and the MacPhails. Amnesty International
urges the Board to reconsider its decision immediately, and for District
Attorney Larry Chisolm to seek to vacate the death warrant. Should Troy
Davis be executed, Georgia may well have executed an innocent man and
in so doing discredited the justice system."The
case against Davis unraveled long ago. Seven out of nine original state
witnesses recanted or changed their original testimonies, some alleging
police coercion. Ten people have pointed to one of the remaining
witnesses as the actual killer. There is no murder weapon that links
Davis to the crime. Any notion of physical evidence that demonstrates
Davis’ guilt has been debunked." Amnesty
International is a Nobel Peace Prize-winning grassroots activist
organization with more than 3 million supporters, activists and
volunteers in more than 150 countries campaigning for human rights
worldwide. The organization investigates and exposes abuses, educates
and mobilizes the public and works to protect people wherever justice,
freedom and dignity are denied.